Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall
Director: Scott Cooper
Runtime: 112 minutes
Critiquing movies like Crazy Heart can be a little difficult, when the movie is dominated by the presence of its lead actor. Jeff Bridges inhabits Bad Blake so completely the performance really does become the movie.
The story is very familiar, a washed up singer struggling with his aging body and his loss of relevance in the world. The most direct performance to compare Bridges here is to Robert Duvall's turn Oscar winning turn in Tender Mercies. Duvall and Bridges both nail their roles of drunken country singers lured into romance with a middle-aged woman with a young son. Despite Crazy Heart's familiar storyline, also similar to last year's The Wrestler, Bridge's performance along with Maggie Gyllenhaal make us care enough to watch for two hours.
Bridge's relationship with Gyllenhaal gets the most screen time, and Gyleenhaal does a fine job with a simply written character. It might be a stretch to consider her work one of the year's best, but given the simple nature of the screenplay and character she does a fine job of making her three-dimensonal. She never makes it difficult to understand what she finds appealing in Blake, she's a writer that has never seen much success. A chance to interview a once successful country singer is a great oppurtinity to gain some notice. Blake has considerable charm and sees someone who isn't interested in who he was but rather who he is. The relationship the two embark on takes up a majority of the movie's screentime and is the central event that changes Blake.
However, the real reason to see Crazy Heart is Jeff Bridges in one of his finest performances. Bridge doesn't play Blake as a caricature but rather as a man that is trying to stay relevant in an industry that has passed him by. Yes, the booze is important to him but so Jean (Gyllenhaal), and he struggles to find the balance between whiskey and the younger woman and son that show him great affection. Blake is a man determined to do things his own way, he reluctantly agrees to open at a large concert for his protege, but in agreeing to he opens up more possibilites. Bridges performance is made stronger by his own singing, which adds more to the realism of the performance, it's not difficult to see Blake having written these songs based on his life experience (much credit goes to T-Bone Burnett for providing original music for the movie).
Supporting work from Colin Farrel and Robert Duvall helps to round out the cast. Crazy Heart may not break any new ground in an too familiar story, but Bridge's winning performance makes Crazy Heart worth seeing.
B
No comments:
Post a Comment